The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate novel Chapter 354

Chapter 354: The Most Rebellious Thing She’d Ever Done

"She is doing what she believes is right," River said in a steady voice that did not match her face. "She is here because she is your fated tie, Tristan, and the pull is real to her. Please, do not arrest her for answering what the Goddess asked of her."

The emotions pouring from River intensified, carrying the weight of a truth she could never speak. Grief that belonged to a woman who had lost everything and resolve that belonged to a woman making the hardest decision of her life. The combination hit Tristan like a punch to the chest.

Next to him, Lucian’s hands curled into fists at his sides. Atlas stood, watching his daughter with careful eyes, trying to understand. But he did not intervene.

The guards kept moving towards Vesper.

But the princess was in their path. To get to Vesper, they would have to touch River, and touching the Crown Princess of Aelindris without authorization was a career decision that required more than a moment’s consideration.

Pink magic snapped around River and Vesper both, instinct overriding thought. River wasn’t aware she was doing it.

The crowd gasped. Color drained from Tristan’s face.

This was something no one had seen from her before. Her magic had always been considered average to weak. Still there, but never her defining characteristic or something she called on regularly, let alone in open defiance.

Using magic to help a criminal resist arrest was an implied threat that if a guard touched either woman, the magic would retaliate.

The guards paused, because protocol here was to use their magic against River to neutralize the threat and take both subjects into custody. None of them wanted to do that.

That was when River realized what she was doing. She glanced down at her pink glowing hands and blinked a few times.

Her reaction bled through her magic. The guards along with everyone else felt it immediately. It was clear her intent was not to harm anyone and that her magic had responded to her emotions. It was an accident, which is what the guards assumed, but that response confirmed it.

None of them moved. One of their lips twitched, almost in fondness.

But to River, they had stopped moving towards Vesper because of her magic. So, to everyone’s utter shock, she held it.

Tristan dragged a hand down his face. River’s surprise at her own magic followed by her decision to keep it up was adorable and the most rebellious thing she had ever done. Under ANY other circumstances, this would have been entertaining.

If he hadn’t just ordered an arrest in front of hundreds of witnesses. If this wasn’t his WEDDING ceremony. If the person he ordered to be arrested wasn’t causing his mate emotional distress. He’d have grinned.

Vesper stared at River’s back.

The woman who had crashed a bonding ceremony to scream about fate and destiny and divine right was standing three feet behind the bride she had just tried to replace, surrounded by pink magic she hadn’t asked for, protected by a woman who had every reason in the world to let the guards drag her away.

"I am perfectly capable of handling myself," Vesper snapped. Her chin tilted upward. "And I certainly have no need for protection from his whore."

The word landed on the courtyard like a slap.

Gasps erupted from every row. A noble woman in the second row made a sound that was half shock and half physical recoil. Three members of Atlas’s personal guard visibly flinched.

River closed her eyes. Another tear tracked down her cheek, slow and steady, catching the afternoon light. She said nothing. She absorbed it the way she had absorbed every blow in her life: silently, without retaliation, with the quiet, stubborn endurance of a woman who had been called worse by a world that started calling her things before she had a name.

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